Search This Blog

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Stop the Old Fogeys who want to ruin Troy!

I'm starting to think that the way to look at the Daniels' administration in Troy is not through a religious or political lens, but to think of them as "Old Fogeys."These are people who have no idea that the young people, who we need to attract to Troy if we are to continue moving forward, are NOT anti-gay, anti-public transportation nor anti-library. Young people are OK with gaiety, thrilled at the prospect of environmentally-friendly public transportation, they support the middle class, they are NOT anti-labor (because they want their parents to have jobs) and the young people of Troy knew a year and a half before Janice Daniels pretended to be pro-library that libraries are an important community asset.But she can't help it. She's an Old Fogey.Now I'm not talking about old people in general. I'm talking about the kinds of old farts (and they can be young, as Tietz still seems to be) who say, "When I was young we had polluted rivers and streams and WE LIKED IT! Kill off that unnecessary EPA!"One of the TCU leaders wrote that taking a train means a loss of freedom. I've lived in a country with a fantastic public transportation system and, of course, it GAVE people more freedom. Have any of these people ever been outside of Michigan?And David Wisz (the so-called transit expert and proud bigot that is a close friend of Tietz's--goes to his Christmas parties and Tietz said he agrees with him 90% of the time--and whom Ms. Daniels admires) worries that the transit center will bring "muggers" and "heroin" to Troy (hmm, wonder what he's referring to there?). And considering Mr. Tietz spent years of his career fighting for the 'civil rights' of white males, I'm not surprised they have so much in common.Daniels, Henderson, Tietz and Co don't have vision. They have ideology, which means they don't have to consider the facts, they just go with their gut. Remember Henderson saying he spoke to all of the Birmingham city council members about why they killed their participation in the project and they explained that they couldn't get the land cheap enough to meet the requirements of the federal monies, then he said he decided they were all lying and that the people were against it? Why on earth did he bother asking them, if he already had all the answers and none of the facts?? Because he's an Old Fogey, and if he doesn't like some whippersnapper's answer, he'll just make up his own, dagnabbit!They can't IMAGINE that if people had more parking and a better station that they might be willing to get on a train to go to other cool cities. And they don't even bother to go a step further and think that if we had more than a lean-to at our stop, people might stop in Troy and spend their money here, too.And they don't understand that there are hundreds of millions of dollars in federal tyransit money coming to Michigan -- tax money that WE HAVE PAID and are finally getting back -- to build up our transportation infrastructure that is decades behinds that of more appealing states. If Troy turns that money down, we will be left behind. They don't understand that our very conservative governor SUPPORTS these investments and believes they are key to Michigan's economic turn around.Why?Because like any Old Fogey, they are afraid of change. They want an America and a Troy from the 1950s, when post-WWII boom money was flying around for anyone to grab and minorities and gay people knew to stay out of sight. (Of course unions were big and important in the 1950s and represented an America with a strong middle class, but they try not to think of that). And you don't have to be a "tax-and-spend liberal" to know that turning down $8.5 million in federal transit money is a terrible idea. The Detroit News editorial board -- not exactly RINOs -- said that Troy would be foolish to turn the money down.You can't teach Old Fogeys new tricks. But you can fight them, tooth and nail, to make sure they don't destroy Troy all for the sake of their questionable and misguided principles and old-fashioned, anti-business, anti-growth ideology.

4 comments:

I'm always appalled when people defend "Old Fogies" by saying, "He/she comes from a time and place when that kind of talk was acceptable." However, that "time and place" also encompasses the creation of unions and the civil rights movement. Also, one would think with age comes wisdom to reconsider beliefs and mores. Not always.

Bonnie: It's great to see you on these boards because you know all the players from having covered Troy politics for the last few years.

Just wondering...did you ever feel muzzled by the Oakland Press' editorial board, who apparently thought Janice Daniels was all that, printing her inane columns on a regular basis, never bothering to fact-check her or vet her positions on anything?

Anonymous ... I was never influenced nor forced by the OP's editorial staff to slant news stories in any particular way. The paper has a policy of running op-eds from all points of view on its opinion page, and all submissions are labeled as "Opinion."

Glad to hear it. I sometimes wondered whether the OP ever bothered to check up on what ended up in the paper. Now, the paper seems to be almost completely opinion, with very little actual news or reporting on its meager pages.

We decided to dump the paper because of it. And we knew you were a good reporter on that beat--we were always surprised to see so little fact-checking by the editorial staff.